Storm Girls (The Juniper Wars Book 4) by Aaron Ritchey (best books to read for students TXT) 📕

to Sterling. Peeperz saw them, two men walking alone on the plain, and Sketchy buzzed down and picked them up. They flew them to Sterling, and then on to Burlington, to wait for me and my sisters.

“How did you know we were going to come here?” I asked.

“Come home? Where else would you go?” Pilate asked. “And Micaiah knew you’d deliver the chalkdrive to June Mai Angel. I said he was crazy, but he knows you, Cavatica. He knows how you think.”

“He doesn’t have feelings any more, does he?”

Pilate shook his head. “No. He pretends to laugh at my jokes, which is tragic for us both.”

I couldn’t stop looking at the Moby, up there, in the sky. She’d lived.

“What about Aunt Bea, Nikki Breeze, the others?”

“Working for Mavis. All of them. And you should see Dolly Day brag about getting the cattle to Wendover. It’s hubris at its worst. I keep expecting Zeus to strike her dead. However, when someone asks what happened to the money from the drive Dolly gets real quiet.”

“Allie Chambers still singing?”

“Yes. But I’ve learned to walk away.”

I chuckled a bit. Being with Pilate, chatting, was healing me. I wondered how that could be? How could simple talk and listening do anything? I didn’t know, but every second I sat next to him, I started to feel less like Wren and more like Cavatica.

“Pilate,” I asked, “how did you get out of Glenwood Springs with all those ARK soldiers there?”

Pilate patted my leg. “No long stories. Not tonight. You need to eat and go to bed.”

“I’m not hungry.” The idea of food made me nauseated. “Okay, tell me more about Sketchy and the Moby.”

And he did. Sketchy, Tech, and Peeperz started working for Mavis Meetchum, who had become the biggest cattle operator in the Colorado territory once Lamar had fallen to June Mai. Dob Howerter, the evil cattle baron who had tried to drive my family out of business, was sent fleeing to Kansas. Mavis made a deal with June Mai, and so the Moby Dick also found herself working for the Outlaw Warlord. Tech talked with June Mai ’cause Sketchy couldn’t forgive the worst Outlaw Warlord ever for trying to murder her and steal her beloved zeppelin.

Pilate did a too-good impersonation of Sketchy, which got me laughing. Even so hurt, so broken, I couldn’t help but laugh at Pilate, who loved to entertain.

June Mai came out and handed Pilate a bowl of something and some corn tortillas, scorched and flaky.

Pilate thanked her. I couldn’t. Every time I looked at that Vietnamese woman, I saw her soldiers, aiming to shoot us and kill us dead. I knew the old Juniper saying, “The Juniper can create friendships out of rainstorms,” but I couldn’t find it in me to forgive her.

How often should we forgive people who wrong us? Jesus said to forgive your enemies seventy times seven, which is four hundred and ninety times. I was planning on never.

I sighed and did my best. “Thanks, June. But I’m not hungry.”

Pilate took the bowl anyway and dug into it. “Hmm, it’s green chili. Really good, too. The pork is pulled, a little chewy, and so spicy. Not canned chilis, no, they got fresh green chilis and roasted them like the Devil cooks sinners.” He crunched into one of the corn tortillas and then returned to spooning the chili into his mouth. “This is probably the best green chili I’ve ever had. Far better than Aunt Bea’s, sorry to say.”

I watched him eat. Then got upset. “How can you eat that in front of me? It was for me.” And before I knew it, I grabbed the spoon out of his hand and scooped up a big spoonful dripping with chilis, tomatoes, and strings of pork. I stuffed it all into my mouth. In seconds, I’d eaten the bowl empty, the corn tortillas, and drank up the canteen and was about to lick the bowl clean when Pilate stopped me, went inside, and brought out another bowl. Which I ate.

He even had a cold Coke in a glass bottle, which I grabbed from him and drank up in throat-shredding gulps.

“Green chili was pretty good,” I said, “but not as good as Aunt Bea’s. But this Coke, dang, it’s like county-fair-good. I don’t suppose there’s pie. Or sopapillas.”

Pilate grinned. “You Wellers, you are so easy. So contrary and easy.”

“What?” I asked, then yawned. Dessert would have to wait; I needed a bed. In filthy clothes or not, I needed to sleep.

Pilate helped me get into the bar, only it wasn’t a bar anymore. It was a command center, with maps, troop counts, women hurrying with reports, back and forth. June Mai was in the middle, her powerful eyes intent, and I caught them for a second. She gave me a head tilt. I didn’t give her one back.

Then Marie Atlas pulled the warlord aside, and they whispered back and forth. Atlas even waved my way and motioned to Pilate.

Pilate stared at them for a minute, and then escorted me up the stairs of the inn. Cheap wood paneling threatened to pull away from exposed two-by-fours. The carpet was flecked with debris. The Chhaang House had never looked worse.

When we were out of earshot, I asked, “What do you suppose June and Marie Atlas were talking about?” I asked.

He shrugged. “Look, things are okay between us and June, and we need to keep it that way.”

“What do you mean?”

Another shrug. “Never mind. I shouldn’t have said anything.” Pilate wouldn’t look me in the eye; he was keeping something from me.

Come to find out, everyone had a secret in June Mai’s camp.

Some were deadlier than others.

Chapter Sixteen

He drove into Arlington in 1993

A Texas-born cowboy blown in on the breeze

He hit that bar at midnight with nothing left to lose

He saw an angel clearing tables

And then he knew ...

Fifty years ain’t long enough

To be married to a woman like that

Fifty years is a raindrop

Compared to the ocean of a woman like that

—Country